South Australia Legislation Change Re Electronic Collars

[Kajirin]

Thank ye very much Denis

[corvus]

The electrical technology is very easy to understand, it is trans cutaeneous electrical stimulation technology, the current is around the same as most other TENS units in domestic use all over the world, here in europe tens products sold in chemists or anywhere else, they are not restricted, hardly surprising as electricity is universally acclaimed & recognised for its benefits to man and other species (which seems to surprise some).

Possibly I am misunderstanding this very easy to understand technology, but I am not so sure they are comparable. TENS units use up to about 100mA, but the resistance is 500 ohms, as opposed to as low as 100 ohms (or lower in certain conditions) for e-collars, as reported in the lawsuit document. The electrical engineer expert witness says:

"With the current pulses lasting for 600 milli-seconds and with a value in excess of 20 milli-amps the animal would most probably suffer high level of distress ... It is recorded that a dog's heart is disturbed when it is exposed to currents as low as 0.06 to 0.1 milli-amp. This is the lower threshold for heart disturbance. ...

Consideration should be given to the possible duration for receiving the electrical shock. With the collar around the neck and the electrodes contacting the skin the dog would be unable to withdraw from the source of the shock. When a human experiences a shock the first reaction is to withdraw and remove the source of the shock. The collar would not enable the dog to reduce the level of the shock. ..."

Furthermore, it is consistently stated with TENS units that they specifically NOT be used on the neck. The contraindication is proximity to the carotid artery. And furthermore again, part of the effectiveness of a TENS unit is the shape of the waves. I am not sure what shape the waves emitted by an e-collar are. The bottomline is that TENS units are supposed to be most effective where they can be felt, but it does not cause pain. A dog can't tell us that they don't feel pain, but most e-collars certainly have the capacity to cause pain. I am not sure what the purpose of the settings going that high is, really, unless you intend to cause the dog pain.

The RSPCA were successfully sued on the basis of the specificity of a few cases. That is, they claimed e-collars cause burns, seizures, and can make a 60kg dog do a backflip. This was found to be untrue and misleading, so they lost. Similarly, they claimed that 3000V went through the dog from these collars, which the electrical engineer revealed was kind of correct but misleading. The collars can channel nearly 3000V, but that is with no resistance. They can't put that through a dog. However, they can put 20mA through a dog, which is believed to be quite distressing.

[Simply Grand]

This is where i think the risk lies with these collars - plenty can be said in support of them, indicating that they dont cause any distress to the dog, and it sounds great to the lay person but I (as a lay person) don't think I understand enough about what either Denis or Corvus have said to actually make an informed decision, although if Corvus hadn't posted Denis's post comes across as quite definitive that there is nothing to be concerned about.

Personally it doesn't make sense to me that something supposedly effective in reducing or eliminating a behaviour doesn't do anything other than send a mild pulse to the dog that doesn't bother it much. If that's the case why would the dog not just ignore it and continue the behaviour it wants to do?

[OSoSwift]

I personally think a correction from a collar, even if it is unpleasant, is far better than dying from snakebite or having to go through the treatment and recovery from one. Would I use on all the time no, would I use in the hope that it does in fact make the dog stay away from snakes, absolutely without a doubt.

Once you have been standing there fighting to keep a dog alive while its dying before you, you have been breathing down an et tube to keep it alive as the owners other dogs are ventilated as they crashed first. When you have been up all night at work watching a flat snake bitten dog who is tubed but can breathe but is freaking out so you have to keep giving it Valium and can't take your hands off it, then it goes into cardiac arrest and despit everything you can't save it, then tell me a correction from a collar to teach my dog to avoid snakes is cruel and unnecessary.

Are the perfect? no, is there no negative stimulation? no but it's a bloody sight better than dealing with the aftermath of a snake bite.

[BlaznHotAussies]

I personally think a correction from a collar, even if it is unpleasant, is far better than dying from snakebite or having to go through the treatment and recovery from one. Would I use on all the time no, would I use in the hope that it does in fact make the dog stay away from snakes, absolutely without a doubt.

Once you have been standing there fighting to keep a dog alive while its dying before you, you have been breathing down an et tube to keep it alive as the owners other dogs are ventilated as they crashed first. When you have been up all night at work watching a flat snake bitten dog who is tubed but can breathe but is freaking out so you have to keep giving it Valium and can't take your hands off it, then it goes into cardiac arrest and despit everything you can't save it, then tell me a correction from a collar to teach my dog to avoid snakes is cruel and unnecessary.

Are the perfect? no, is there no negative stimulation? no but it's a bloody sight better than dealing with the aftermath of a snake bite.

Perfectly said!!

I've heard more success stories of e-collars than disaster stories. And I'd much rather still have a dog if there's been a snake around.

Maybe it's different when you live in the country and there are lots of snakes around

[huski]

Simply grand many dogs would and do ignore low level stim. Like any training the dog needs to be conditioned to the stim without distraction. Most trainers will use the collar on the lowest perceivable level to the dog so training has to start in an environment that has low distraction.

[huski]

It might help for anyone curious about modern ecollar training to view some videos on YouTube. A quick search showed me this one;

No idea who this trainer is but the video demonstrates a trainer finding the working level for different dogs.

It might give you a different picture on ecollar training if you aren't familiar with it.

[corvus]

I don't think e-collars are necessarily cruel and inhumane, just as punishment is not necessarily cruel and inhumane. When used judiciously, it can save lives and may give a dog a better quality life than they would otherwise have. The question is, IS it necessary? And does it work? Cooper et al.'s recent paper on e-collar use suggested it works no better than positive reinforcement for things like recall and stock chasing. We have little data for aversion training, but the kiwi work suggests it is moderately to highly effective in the short-term and moderately effective in the longer term. Some people do snake avoidance training with positive reinforcement these days, teaching dogs to return to a handler or keep their distance when they find a snake. On the face of it, this is not more dangerous than, say, the bomb detection dogs that must not under any circumstances touch a trip wire even if there is meat hanging off it to tempt them because it will blow them and everyone with them to pieces. Bob Bailey reports that they used a very serious punishment to make sure dogs would not touch trip wires and only applied it a few times. It was bad enough that they would threaten you if you tried to push those dogs towards the wire. Bailey did that because the powers that be insisted, but says he didn't know if it was necessary. He had argued it wasn't. Bailey is a master at conditioning animals, though, and I seriously doubt there are many trainers that could even approach what he has done in the past with perfectly orchestrated environments and stimuli, and many dogs are coming with a history of behaviour that Bailey never would have allowed in the first place.

HOWEVER, Cooper gave a talk at the last Canine Science Forum last year about his work. They were originally planning to compare typical e-collar use with positive reinforcement, but discovered that the average person using these devices in the UK were using them like a sledgehammer and causing a fair bit of distress in the dogs, to the point where they probably could have been charged with animal cruelty. At the end of the day, one has to consider the capacity of a tool for misuse and the impact of that misuse. It's all well and good to argue that you are a good driver and therefore it is safe for you to speed, but we have laws there to prevent this because not everyone is a good driver. I think e-collar manufacturers need to seriously consider how potentially damaging they are comfortable with their products being, and we as a community will decide whether we are comfortable with people potentially inflicting that on dogs. If the capacity is there for harm, then you have to assume harm will occur.

[Willem]

I don't think e-collars are necessarily cruel and inhumane, just as punishment is not necessarily cruel and inhumane. When used judiciously, it can save lives and may give a dog a better quality life than they would otherwise have. The question is, IS it necessary? And does it work? Cooper et al.'s recent paper on e-collar use suggested it works no better than positive reinforcement for things like recall and stock chasing. We have little data for aversion training, but the kiwi work suggests it is moderately to highly effective in the short-term and moderately effective in the longer term. Some people do snake avoidance training with positive reinforcement these days, teaching dogs to return to a handler or keep their distance when they find a snake. On the face of it, this is not more dangerous than, say, the bomb detection dogs that must not under any circumstances touch a trip wire even if there is meat hanging off it to tempt them because it will blow them and everyone with them to pieces. Bob Bailey reports that they used a very serious punishment to make sure dogs would not touch trip wires and only applied it a few times. It was bad enough that they would threaten you if you tried to push those dogs towards the wire. Bailey did that because the powers that be insisted, but says he didn't know if it was necessary. He had argued it wasn't. Bailey is a master at conditioning animals, though, and I seriously doubt there are many trainers that could even approach what he has done in the past with perfectly orchestrated environments and stimuli, and many dogs are coming with a history of behaviour that Bailey never would have allowed in the first place.

HOWEVER, Cooper gave a talk at the last Canine Science Forum last year about his work. They were originally planning to compare typical e-collar use with positive reinforcement, but discovered that the average person using these devices in the UK were using them like a sledgehammer and causing a fair bit of distress in the dogs, to the point where they probably could have been charged with animal cruelty. At the end of the day, one has to consider the capacity of a tool for misuse and the impact of that misuse. It's all well and good to argue that you are a good driver and therefore it is safe for you to speed, but we have laws there to prevent this because not everyone is a good driver. I think e-collar manufacturers need to seriously consider how potentially damaging they are comfortable with their products being, and we as a community will decide whether we are comfortable with people potentially inflicting that on dogs. If the capacity is there for harm, then you have to assume harm will occur.

First: I really appreciate your balanced comments and well-thought-out and valuable input . There are only a few points I see a little bit different. E.g. wrt snakes: I'm absolutely convinced that you can achieve the same result with positive reinforcement, however, as you said, 'if the capacity is there for harm, then you have to assume harm will occur'...so if a lot of people start now snake avoidance training based on positive reinforcement with deadly snakes there will be bites too. Hence - in this specific case - I prefer the e-collar to minimize the period of time a deadly snake needs to be handled.

I understand the antipathy regards e-collar, and while you could do a lot of torture to a dog by e.g. using a thin cord (which is freely available) for recall training, unfortunately it is the human nature that make them more keen to apply torture if they only have to press a button (how convenient!). But maybe there is a solution: it should be pretty easy to code respectively to lock the receiver in the e-collar requiring a special code to unlock it. If those codes are only released to authorized people it would definitely minimize the potential damage done by those collars. Similar systems work for bank transaction etc. etc.. An e-collar manufacturer could produce collars that are controlled via mobile apps, and every time an authorized person envisage to do training employing the e-collar he/she has to request clearance to use the device....the clearance could be for a specific date or specific number of shots to minimize the risk of misuse....o.k., this 'giving permission' involves more work / effort for the manufacturer (or distributor?), but he could also raise a fee for this...

So there are ways possible to address the concerns of both sides (pro and con e-collar supporters)...

Edited:...usual spelling ...formatting errors..

Edited November 11, 2015 by Willem

[Denis Carthy]

Corvus

I don't think e-collars are necessarily cruel and inhumane, just as punishment is not necessarily cruel and inhumane. When used judiciously, it can save lives and may give a dog a better quality life than they would otherwise have. The question is, IS it necessary? And does it work? Cooper et al.'s recent paper on e-collar use suggested it works no better than positive reinforcement for things like recall and stock chasing. We have little data for aversion training, but the kiwi work suggests it is moderately to highly effective in the short-term and moderately effective in the longer term. Some people do snake avoidance training with positive reinforcement these days, teaching dogs to return to a handler or keep their distance when they find a snake. On the face of it, this is not more dangerous than, say, the bomb detection dogs that must not under any circumstances touch a trip wire even if there is meat hanging off it to tempt them because it will blow them and everyone with them to pieces. Bob Bailey reports that they used a very serious punishment to make sure dogs would not touch trip wires and only applied it a few times. It was bad enough that they would threaten you if you tried to push those dogs towards the wire. Bailey did that because the powers that be insisted, but says he didn't know if it was necessary. He had argued it wasn't. Bailey is a master at conditioning animals, though, and I seriously doubt there are many trainers that could even approach what he has done in the past with perfectly orchestrated environments and stimuli, and many dogs are coming with a history of behaviour that Bailey never would have allowed in the first place.

HOWEVER, Cooper gave a talk at the last Canine Science Forum last year about his work. They were originally planning to compare typical e-collar use with positive reinforcement, but discovered that the average person using these devices in the UK were using them like a sledgehammer and causing a fair bit of distress in the dogs, to the point where they probably could have been charged with animal cruelty. At the end of the day, one has to consider the capacity of a tool for misuse and the impact of that misuse. It's all well and good to argue that you are a good driver and therefore it is safe for you to speed, but we have laws there to prevent this because not everyone is a good driver. I think e-collar manufacturers need to seriously consider how potentially damaging they are comfortable with their products being, and we as a community will decide whether we are comfortable with people potentially inflicting that on dogs. If the capacity is there for harm, then you have to assume harm will occur.

Kudos to curvus, such a medium scale work of the highest artistic and and intellectual impact is surely worth submitting in a major competitionfor international art & litrature.

.

[Simply Grand]

Corvus

I don't think e-collars are necessarily cruel and inhumane, just as punishment is not necessarily cruel and inhumane. When used judiciously, it can save lives and may give a dog a better quality life than they would otherwise have. The question is, IS it necessary? And does it work? Cooper et al.'s recent paper on e-collar use suggested it works no better than positive reinforcement for things like recall and stock chasing. We have little data for aversion training, but the kiwi work suggests it is moderately to highly effective in the short-term and moderately effective in the longer term. Some people do snake avoidance training with positive reinforcement these days, teaching dogs to return to a handler or keep their distance when they find a snake. On the face of it, this is not more dangerous than, say, the bomb detection dogs that must not under any circumstances touch a trip wire even if there is meat hanging off it to tempt them because it will blow them and everyone with them to pieces. Bob Bailey reports that they used a very serious punishment to make sure dogs would not touch trip wires and only applied it a few times. It was bad enough that they would threaten you if you tried to push those dogs towards the wire. Bailey did that because the powers that be insisted, but says he didn't know if it was necessary. He had argued it wasn't. Bailey is a master at conditioning animals, though, and I seriously doubt there are many trainers that could even approach what he has done in the past with perfectly orchestrated environments and stimuli, and many dogs are coming with a history of behaviour that Bailey never would have allowed in the first place.

HOWEVER, Cooper gave a talk at the last Canine Science Forum last year about his work. They were originally planning to compare typical e-collar use with positive reinforcement, but discovered that the average person using these devices in the UK were using them like a sledgehammer and causing a fair bit of distress in the dogs, to the point where they probably could have been charged with animal cruelty. At the end of the day, one has to consider the capacity of a tool for misuse and the impact of that misuse. It's all well and good to argue that you are a good driver and therefore it is safe for you to speed, but we have laws there to prevent this because not everyone is a good driver. I think e-collar manufacturers need to seriously consider how potentially damaging they are comfortable with their products being, and we as a community will decide whether we are comfortable with people potentially inflicting that on dogs. If the capacity is there for harm, then you have to assume harm will occur.

Kudos to curvus, such a medium scale work of the highest artistic and and intellectual impact is surely worth submitting in a major competitionfor international art & litrature.

.

Wow, way to have a genuine discussion Denis, completely dismiss Corvus's research based comment. Makes it very hard for me to take what you've said seriously.

[Denis Carthy]

Simply grand

many dogs would and do ignore low level stim. Like any training the dog needs to be conditioned to the stim without distraction. Most trainers will use the collar on the lowest perceivable level to the dog so training has to start in an environment that has low distraction.

Yes,thanks for getting the topic back to educational posts, as Mcfarlon demo's here conditioning

Foundation For Off lead Distance Recall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsO66m4e820

Meanwhile, here in UK, in 2006, the method of using tapping to give an instruction to down stay so any lost dog could be recovered if it had a remote activation tracking beeper on. See the vid demo carried out on normal exercise, 2008 vid clip....over 20 e-stims occure in the 4 examples shown

Excercise For *Lost Dog Recovery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdwIMrcW0hc

*

Appx 3 years ago Tri Tronics sold out to Garmin, the lost dog recovery exercise is now possible up 9 miles with the garmin-tri tronics integrated technologies

http://www.garmin.com/en-US/explore/onthetrail/sporting-dogs#track-train

.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Denis Carthy

[Willem]

Simply grand

many dogs would and do ignore low level stim. Like any training the dog needs to be conditioned to the stim without distraction. Most trainers will use the collar on the lowest perceivable level to the dog so training has to start in an environment that has low distraction.

Yes,thanks for getting the topic back to educational posts, as Mcfarlon demo's here conditioning

Foundation For Off lead Distance Recall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsO66m4e820

Meanwhile, here in UK, in 2006, the method of using tapping to give an instruction to down stay so any lost dog could be recovered if it had a remote activation tracking beeper on. See the vid demo carried out on normal exercise, 2008 vid clip....over 20 e-stims occure in the 4 examples shown

Excercise For *Lost Dog Recovery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdwIMrcW0hc

*

Appx 3 years ago Tri Tronics sold out to Garmin, the lost dog recovery exercise is now possible up 9 miles with the garmin-tri tronics integrated technologies

http://www.garmin.com/en-US/explore/onthetrail/sporting-dogs#track-train

.

wrt 'lost dog recovery': hm...dog out of sight...owner hits the button when the dog is just crossing a highway or railway (owner can't see where the dog is)...outch !...

...typical example where people use a tool without considering possible scenarios - scares me.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Willem

[Simply Grand]

Simply grand

many dogs would and do ignore low level stim. Like any training the dog needs to be conditioned to the stim without distraction. Most trainers will use the collar on the lowest perceivable level to the dog so training has to start in an environment that has low distraction.

Yes,thanks for getting the topic back to educational posts, as Mcfarlon demo's here conditioning

Foundation For Off lead Distance Recall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsO66m4e820

Meanwhile, here in UK, in 2006, the method of using tapping to give an instruction to down stay so any lost dog could be recovered if it had a remote activation tracking beeper on. See the vid demo carried out on normal exercise, 2008 vid clip....over 20 e-stims occure in the 4 examples shown

Excercise For *Lost Dog Recovery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdwIMrcW0hc

*

Appx 3 years ago Tri Tronics sold out to Garmin, the lost dog recovery exercise is now possible up 9 miles with the garmin-tri tronics integrated technologies

http://www.garmin.com/en-US/explore/onthetrail/sporting-dogs#track-train

.

You've addressed that post to me but quoted huski, who, like Corvus, was providing a reasoned response to my comments, so I don't quite follow your point.

I'll look a bit more at the rest of your post tomorrow when I'm more awake.

[Denis Carthy]

wrt 'lost dog recovery': hm...dog out of sight...owner hits the button when the dog is just crossing a highway or railway (owner can't see where the dog is)...outch !......typical example where people use a tool without considering possible scenarios - scares me

But why would it scare you? you, obviously, you would not use it & if you had a dog lost it could just as easily end up squashed on a road without a collar, the later is really beside the point, what would be a relevant point is for those who refuse to learn about collars to ALSO demonstrate how they would recover their dog if it was lost by useing the Garmin sat nav without any way of recovering the dog.........the only thing I can forsee (correct me if i am wrong) is that they would simply watch the screen as their dog lost was wandering round in 12 miles radius, probably including roads & until it was out of range or lying dead on a road, in which case they could recover the remains......i request a sensible answer to that.

.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Denis Carthy

[Willem]

wrt 'lost dog recovery': hm...dog out of sight...owner hits the button when the dog is just crossing a highway or railway (owner can't see where the dog is)...outch !......typical example where people use a tool without considering possible scenarios - scares me

But why would it scare you? you, obviously, you would not use it & if you had a dog lost it could just as easily end up squashed on a road without a collar, the later is really beside the point, what would be a relevant point is for those who refuse to learn about collars to ALSO demonstrate how they would recover their dog if it was lost by useing the Garmin sat nav without any way of recovering the dog.........the only thing I can forsee (correct me if i am wrong) is that they would simply watch the screen as their dog lost was wandering round in 12 miles radius, probably including roads & until it was out of range or lying dead on a road, in which case they could recover the remains......i request a sensible answer to that.

.

...I believe it is irresponsible to put up such a video on YouTube - for sure their will be followers who do exactly the same thing like the dog owner in the clip just to find their dog smashed by a truck when they come around the next corner finding a very busy road...unfortunately, this video clip is a very good example why the access to such tools should be restricted...at least show a clip where it is used for a decent recall, but don't use such a tool to make your dog drop when he is out of sight as he could be in the middle of a busy road!

Edited November 11, 2015 by Willem

[Denis Carthy]

...I believe it is irresponsible to put up such a video on YouTube -

But thats nothing more than the everyday normal differences between billions of individuals on billions of individual subjects, you think its irresponsible, I don't, i show the goods some will & do use it others will not bother.

Now, of relevance, are you in an Aus state which has either bans or restrictions on e-collars and in consequence bans on learning anything about them???

.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Denis Carthy

[Denis Carthy]

just to find their dog smashed by a truck when they come around the next corner finding a very busy road

You'r clear, obvious implication is that if a lost dog ends up on a road it will get killed by truck if its wearing collar in use as a lost dog recover method and if its not wearing an e-collar and trained in that, it would just as easy get on to a road but because its not on an e-collar no harm will come to it.

Out of 100 dogs which have gotten lost somehow other and are between 5 to 10 miles distance from owner, 50 have the garmin/tri tronics system and are trained to do a down stay and await recovery (stay) and the remaining 50 have nothing which do you think would be the higher % of dogs recovered with no harm done out of the 2 groups???, Im interested in your answer Willem.

.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Denis Carthy

[Willem]

just to find their dog smashed by a truck when they come around the next corner finding a very busy road

You'r clear, obvious implication is that if a lost dog ends up on a road it will get killed by truck if its wearing collar in use as a lost dog recover method and if its not wearing an e-collar and trained in that, it would just as easy get on to a road but because its not on an e-collar no harm will come to it.

Out of 100 dogs which have gotten lost somehow other and are between 5 to 10 miles distance from owner, 50 have the garmin/tri tronics system and are trained to do a down stay and await recovery (stay) and the remaining 50 have nothing which do you think would be the higher % of dogs recovered with no harm done out of the 2 groups???, Im interested in your answer Willem.

.

that's the point...you can use all this electronic tools to improve scenarios or to make them worse; doing what you describe here in the outback or other remote areas makes sense, however, doing the same in a city or suburban area is IMO not suitable and would decrease the chances to see the dog alive again as you might hit the button at the wrong moment.

The problem with the video clip is that it attempts (?) to support the use of e-collars, but does it in a way that is - IMO - totally contra productive. The guy in the video (is it you?) let get the dog out of sight...the dog could have chased a rabbit in the meanwhile, could be shot by a ranger (I think in a few European countries rangers have the right to shoot an unsupervised dog in a forest etc.?...TBC) or could be just crossing a road or a railway. If the guy in the clip wants to highlight the advantages, he has to show the risks and potential hazards that could evolve from using such tools too - that is actually his duty of care which shouldn't be taken lightly! ...unfortunately there are people out there who even used their microwaves to dry their pets, then successfully sued the manufacturer because they didn't warned them not to do so.

[corvus]

Denis Carthy's latest argument is only relevant to those who are currently using their dogs in a hunting context in Australia, and also have them out of range of a loud whistle or something similar, AND to and have the skills to train them to lay down on the spot for a long period. How many people are we talking about, here? You could just as easily train this with a pager and positive reinforcement, or even a tone. If the problem is you need to issue a signal to a dog that is out of hearing range, that is not a problem that can only be solved by e-collars. There's some really subtle work being done with e-collars in certain circles, but the problem in my mind is it is far outweighed by heavy handedness. I would certainly not believe the assertion that "most trainers" are using it at low levels. Bollocks. Who is "most trainers"? Give me figures. What are they using it for? Let me see what they consider "low levels". That's not what Cooper et al. found in the UK at all, and everyone knows the situation in the US is worse again.

You don't have to be an e-collar hater to want regulation, and nor do you have to be ignorant about how they can be used. You don't have to believe they do nothing but cause pain, and you don't have to deny they can ever be a useful tool. Despite their illegal status, they are out there in NSW, and they are creating work for people like me. It's annoying as hell when your own industry is doing half the damage. Proponents are going to have a hard time convincing me trainers are competent enough to be allowed to use these things legally after some of the stories I've heard. It's lovely when someone shows you a video of their dog experiencing a very low level stimulation, but you can bet they are not putting up their videos of using it on higher levels unless they are so incompetent they don't know how obviously distressing it is.